The Adventures of Princess Chell
by Midnight Sacrilege
Summary: Chell and Rattmann work through the consequences of that fateful Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. Incorporates a few technologies from the universe of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age; understandable without having read that novel. Reviews welcomed as I'm writing this for a class. Some language and violence.
1. Ch 1: The Courtesy Call

A/N: This will potentially contain spoilers for _Portal_, _Portal 2_, and the Lab Rat comic. I'm writing this story as my final project in a class that investigates narrative and technology, and I welcome your feedback. I will be incorporating a few elements from the universe of Neal Stephenson's novel _The Diamond Age_ (no spoilers), though I'll endeavour not to make this inaccessible to those who haven't read that. Thank you and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Courtesy Call**

Linda Rattmann turned from the stove, two bowls of steaming pasta in her hands. She walked slowly towards the dining room table, being careful not to spill them, and set one down in front of her husband. The walk to her seat was too long, Doug thought as she traversed the space that was to be filled by the children they wanted but would never have. When she sat down and bowed her head to pray, he studied her. The cancer that tore through her ovaries hadn't left its mark anywhere else on her: her blonde hair was back, long and beautiful as ever, and the gauntness in her face had disappeared as she entered remission. Every day, he was grateful to still have her in his life. Those days when it had seemed like he might not were a dark stain in a past he didn't care to think about.

Linda lifted her head and dipped a fork into her pasta. "I ran into Caroline at the party last night. She's such a gem."

"Aperture would go down without her," Doug agreed. "And she has such a heart for children. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you! She asked me to start working on a new project this morning. They passed the Image Format off to that new guy, and…I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but I can't help it, Lin, you'll love it. Caroline wants me to develop a book, a primer of sorts. Something interactive, geared specifically at kids. Girls.

"Think about it, honey," he went on excitedly. "How will we raise the next generation of scientists?"

Linda humoured him: "How?"

"This is the way! Can you see it? Girls at every elementary school being issued one of these, growing up with a love of the sciences—the CEO of every business could be the next Caroline. It's purely in the experimental stages right now, of course. But she has big plans for it. And it won't be just science; she wants it to teach skills and values. One in particular she calls _subversiveness_—she wants them questioning authority, not settling for things as they are. I like to think of it as…tenacity."

"If it's a book…" Linda's smile was as much sheepish as it was unstoppable. "Do you think she would have any use for a rusty children's librarian? I'd love to help out."

Doug smiled back at her. Before he could answer, a baby's cry shattered the silence.


	2. Ch 2: Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

**Chapter 2: Bring Your Daughter to Work Day**

"If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep."

-GLaDOS

* * *

On his way to the lab that morning, Doug clutched a tri-folded piece of cardboard and a potato battery. His other hand was occupied by his daughter's smaller one. Chell was unable to carry her own science fair project, as she refused to let go of the book he had given her as a fourth birthday present. It had been that way for two years. The _Primer _had bonded to her, exactly as the engineers on the project had predicted. Doug was glad for it; it filled the space Linda couldn't. Sometimes the weight of her absence hung so heavily on him that he couldn't breathe.

"Remember, honey," he said to Chell, to push the thought of Lin from his mind. "Don't let anyone see your book. Keep it in your backpack, okay?"

"Okay," she answered, as Doug swiped his security card and they entered the Aperture Science facility. He swiped again at the elevator entrance, and they stepped into a buttonless elevator car and began their descent into the ground.

"Daddy, how big is this place?" Chell asked after they'd been descending for several minutes.

"It's very big," Doug answered.

"What do you do here?"

"We do science." His heart swelled and a grin broke across his face. The pride he took in Aperture's mission filled him with joy. Still, it was a joy that couldn't penetrate the space Lin had left. The doctors had said the chance of the cancer returning was seven percent. Seven percent. He never fully forgave himself for what happened to her. He could have brought anything back from the labs. The truth was he didn't have any clue what kinds of projects were being done down there; his work clothes might have been chock full of toxins that seeped into her body every time she did the laundry. The cause of the cancer was unknown, after all.

What killed him the most was that Aperture had nothing. He'd even gone so far as to appeal to Caroline, who was herself in her final days, confined to a bed deep in the facility out of her own fear that she might become senile and wind up spilling Aperture secrets to outsider doctors.

* * *

"_Caroline, I need to talk to you about something. Are they treating you well here?"_

"_These are my own people, Doug. They're treating me just fine. I'm pretty sure if they didn't, Cave would come back from the grave and have their heads." An expression of grief flickered across her face, and her next attempt at words degenerated into an intense bout of coughing. When she finally could speak again, she asked: "What can I do for you, Doug?"_

"_It's Lin. She's…the cancer's back. It's not just her reproductive system, this time. It's…it's everywhere."_

"_I'm sorry to hear that."_

_Doug waited for a long time after that, waited for her to say the next thing, the right thing. But she didn't._

"_Ca—" His voice broke and he tried again: "Caroline. There must be something at Aperture that can help her. Someone here has to be working on a longevity serum, a new radiation technology, a goddamn cure for cancer!"_

_Her next pause was almost longer than the last._

"_You know I couldn't tell you, even if there was." The words were measured, even._

_Doug could feel his thoughts turning ballistic, ricocheting in his mind, threatening to kill him. He opened his mouth to sob and a bullet found its way out instead._

"_TO HELL WITH SCIENCE! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO LOSE SOMEONE YOU LOVE?"_

_It was too late. The cat was out of the box, and it was dead._

_Caroline's face, previously pale with sickness, flamed crimson._

"_Don't you think if I had a cure for anything I would have used it to save him!?" She flung a gnarled finger across her chest, pointing at Cave's portrait on the wall._

_Doug stood in shameful silence. When Caroline spoke again, her voice had softened._

"_Saying goodbye to the people closest to you is part of life, Rattmann. I hope you don't lose any more."_

* * *

"Will I be doing science today?" His daughter's voice snapped him out of his reverie.

Doug found it in himself to smile again, and as the elevator doors opened they stepped hand-in-hand into a bright, antiseptic hallway.

"Yes! And I hope you keep wanting to do science for a long time."


	3. Ch 3: Aperture Daycare

**Chapter 3: Aperture Daycare**

"Remember, the Aperture Science Bring Your Daughter to Work Day is the perfect time to have her tested."

-GLaDOS

* * *

Chell sat in a room with twenty or so other girls. Most were around her age—the oldest looked to be probably eleven or twelve. All of them were listening to the disembodied voice speaking to them through the wall. Before this, a woman in a lab coat had told the girls how special it was that GLaDOS—the voice—had taken time out of her busy schedule to talk to them. Chell didn't' think this GLaDOS was making a very big sacrifice, since she hadn't even bothered to come down there herself. The woman in the lab coat was now standing near the door, looking uneasy for a reason Chell couldn't figure out.

"I'm glad you girls could come today," GLaDOS began. "Our founder Cave Johnson liked to say that Aperture was on the forefront of science; today, we proudly continue his work, and just like him, we stop at nothing to get results. We have a lot of important initiatives going on right now, but none of you have the security clearance to see them. Enjoy your stay."

Chell wasn't sure, but she thought she saw one of the cameras on the wall swivel toward her as the voice mentioned security clearance. Remembering her dad's warning, she reached for her backpack and pulled it protectively to her, feeling the comforting weight of the _Primer_ against her palm.

"Okay!" the woman in the room exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "We're going to get our brains scanned today! Won't that be fun?" She choked on her last syllable, like the idea of fun pained her, or like she didn't believe what she was saying.

"Come on, girls." She ushered them out of the room and into a hallway that looked indistinguishable from the one Chell and her dad had walked through when they entered the building.

"I think I'd get lost in here," Chell said to herself.

"What's that, sweetie?" the woman asked.

Chell shrank back and let several girls walk in front of her so she didn't have to answer.

The group of daughters followed the woman through a maze of hallways. Many of the girls chatted quietly with each other, but Chell kept to herself and observed. Now and then the aggressive whiteness of the hallway was interrupted by a huge metal door. Chell read well enough to understand the writing on the red placard that adorned each one: TESTCHAMBER 04, PROPULSION LABORATORY, LIVE FIRE COURSE—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. This last door was the slightest bit ajar, and Chell thought she heard a small voice call out to her from within.

"Hello?"

She stopped. The group was moving on in front of her, but she retraced her steps and peeked around the door. A red glow bathed her face.

"Make sure to stay together," GLaDOS's voice chimed from behind her. "I wouldn't want any of you getting lost and missing the scan."

Chell whirled around, but there was no one there. Hadn't that woman said that GLaDOS was busy doing important things?

Chell jogged to catch up with the group. As she ran, her backpack slapped against her, reminding her of the book's presence. Finally, the woman in the lab coat halted her brisk walk and pushed open one of the metal doors. Chell noticed that this one was unlabelled.

"Go ahead inside, girls." The woman stood at the threshold and made sure each of them entered before shutting the door behind her.

Inside, the room was small, with concrete walls. A single structure stood in the middle of it. It was a metal pod, with an opening at the top on one end.

"Who wants to go first?" the woman chimed.

Without her noticing, all of the other girls had taken a step back, leaving Chell standing on her own.

"Looks like we have a volunteer! Hop on in, dear."

Chell studied the pod with curiosity, but didn't move. It looked devoid of any buttons or equipment.

"How is it going to scan me?"

This seemed to give the woman pause.

"You let me worry about that," she said eventually.

Chell stepped cautiously toward the pod.

"Don't worry, sweetie," the woman added, sensing her hesitation. "It's perfectly safe."

Chell reached the pod. It was almost too tall for her, and she had to heave herself over the edge to get in. Inside, it was spacious; it seemed meant for someone bigger than her. She settled into the cushiony material, and her head seemed to be resting on a kind of pillow. Did people sleep in here? She wondered how long this was supposed to take.

After Chell had settled in, the woman approached the pod. Chell expected her to do something, but she stood there for a long moment, staring at the wall across from her. Cell noticed that she wasn't breathing.

Finally, the woman in the lab coat took in a strange, shuddering breath. She reached out to touch something out of Chell's view, and a curved glass panel began to slide into place above her, closing the pod.

"Cool," she heard one of the other girls say.

Just before the panel closed all the way, Chell heard a hissing sound that dampened as she was closed into the pod. She looked around to see that a faint green gas was filling the room.

Muffled screams reached her ears. They must have been coming from the girls, because the woman in the lab coat was still within Chell's field of view, and she was dropping to her knees, tears streaming down her face.


	4. Ch 4: Sacrifice for Science

**Chapter 4: Sacrifice for Science**

"I have your brain scanned and permanently backed up in case something terrible happens to you, which it's just about to."

-GLaDOS

* * *

The engineers were gathered in the control room, chatting among themselves. GLaDOS swivelled toward them.

"Thank you all for coming. I have a surprise for you." Sometimes Doug could hear the honey sweetness of Caroline's voice preserved in hers.

"I've taken it upon myself to ensure that your daughters receive the best possible upbringing. They are under my care now. They will stay here with me, and test for the rest of their lives."

It took different amounts of time to set in for the parents in the room. A collective gasp rose from the crowd, and bewildered murmurs morphed into screams of despair.

"You bitch!" Doug had never wished harder for a skull gun, but Aperture employees weren't permitted to carry them. Now that he thought about it, it had been the people on the GLaDOS project who pushed the hardest for that rule. He looked around for something to throw at one of her screens.

"Now, now. You wouldn't want Subject 1498 to her you using that kind of language, would you?"

An image flashed on the screens—no, it was a video feed, of his daughter, sitting in the corner of a dark room. Her gaze was directed straight ahead, her knees were pulled to her chest and her arms were wrapped around her legs to keep them there. _The book_, Doug thought. _I don't see the book._ Had Chell managed to hide it?

"Don't be alarmed," GLaDOS was saying. "They will be well cared for. I've already made sure they'll have everything little girls could require, like cake. Really, this may be the greatest contribution any of you will ever make to science."

"We have to stop her," someone uttered from the crowd, reaching for the controls.

"If you make any attempt to stop me," GLaDOS went on, "I will flood the Enrichment Center with deadly neurotoxin."

"We gave her _neurotoxin_?" an engineer from another project cried.

"I require simply that you exit the building now, and return to your jobs in the morning. We have a lot of work to do."

There was a long pause before the first parent moved. Doug followed, his mind racing. He couldn't leave Chell. With Lin gone, there was nothing for him at home. How could he go on living, knowing his beautiful, bright daughter was here, trapped by that maniac of an AI? As the group moved down a hallway on its way to the exit, Doug broke off and dashed for a bathroom. Aperture pushed a lot of boundaries, but he knew there would be no cameras there. He pushed open a stall door, collapsed on the toilet seat, and let free the sob that had been building inside him since GLaDOS went rogue.

* * *

Doug was jarred awake by the sound of the stall door next to him clanging shut. His watch read 10:00 AM. He ran his hand through his hair, took a deep breath, then stood up and exited the stall. He caught sight of his puffy eyes in the mirror above the sink, and the horrors of the day before washed over him. His friend and coworker Henry emerged from the other stall to find him heaving the nonexistent contents of his stomach into the sink.

"Doug! You alright, man? Where…did you spend the whole night in here?"

Doug straightened, swallowing bile.

"I told you," he sputtered.

"Told me what?"

"That the morality core wouldn't be enough."

Henry was silent. He'd been one of the biggest names on the GLaDOS initiative. The neurotoxin threat wasn't new; she'd tried it every time they started her up. The program was deemed a failure and sentenced to shutdown. But Henry, determined to see his computer engineering dream become a reality, invented a morality core, a technology designed to be her conscience. That wouldn't work, Dough had told him—you can always ignore your conscience. Like the kind of conscience that tells you your vocation might be slowly killing your wife.

"Anna?" Doug asked. Chell and Henry's daughter might have become good friends, if Doug had ever felt up to having guests.

Henry shook his head. The two fathers shared a moment of silent grief.

"I'm going to get them back," Doug said decisively, after he couldn't stand the sight of himself in the mirror any longer.

"She's watching us like a hawk," Henry replied. "You'll never get past her."

"She doesn't know I'm here. For all she thinks, I left yesterday and didn't come back."

Henry pondered this fact.

"It could work." He looked around. "There are security panels built into the walls. We put them there to stop her if something like…well, like this happened. You could access one through that vent there."

Doug followed Henry's gaze to an air conditioning vent high on the wall.

"Hoist me up."

"I will, but Doug: the moment you access the panel, she'll know you're there."

"What choice do I have, Henry? She has my daughter. Our daughters."

Wordlessly, Henry linked his fingers together, and held them out as a step for his friend. Doug clambered up, removed the grill covering the vent, and heaved himself in. As he did so, something fell out of his pants pocket and clattered to the floor. Henry picked it up.

"Ziaprazidone?

* * *

"_An onset of schizophrenia this late in adulthood is exceedingly rare. In fact, it's unheard of. Could you tell me a little bit about your place of work, Mr. Rattmann? Any exposure to strange chemicals?"_

"_I'm afraid I can't."_

"_I get it, you're one of those secret government types. I see a lot of you. Where is this Aperture Science you have listed, anyway, Area 51?"_

"_Something like that."_

"_Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Mr. Rattmann—should I call you Agent Rattmann? I'm going to prescribe you some Ziaprazidone, and you're going to promise me that you'll distress a little bit. You know, take a vacation, play a couple ractives, find a woman!"_

_Doug accepted the prescription the doctor handed him, and stood to leave the room. Just as he reached the door, he heard a rustling of papers and the psychiatrist's voice mutter, almost to himself:_

"_Oh, I'm sorry. It says here you're a widower."_

* * *

Henry handed back the bottle of drugs without asking any more questions. Doug pocketed it, and wriggled his way toward the interior of the air duct. He was just maneuvering around the first turn, when he heard Henry call out to him.

"Doug!"

"What?"

"Godspeed."

A moment later the bathroom door swung shut, leaving Doug alone.


	5. Ch 5: Idle Threats

**Chapter 5: Idle Threats**

"It's not too late for you to turn back."

-GLaDOS

* * *

Doug dragged himself through the duct with his elbows, following Henry's instructions for how to reach the security panel. He knew it when he saw it: the duct opened up—not enough for him to stand, but enough to sit, at least, and a gleaming screen with an accompanying array of buttons was set into the wall. His fingers played over the largest of them, a red button with EMERGENCY written on it in large white letters. Remembering GLaDOS's threat, he decided to take a more subtle approach. He touched a less imposing button on the keyboard and the screen lit up. A dialog box floated above the Aperture logo. Doug entered his company username and password into it, and pressed ENTER.

"Oh, it's you." Her voice emanated from directly behind him.

Doug's heart leapt into his throat, but he forced himself not to turn around. She wasn't there. She _couldn't_ be there. He focused instead on finding out where she was keeping their daughters. After some searching, he discovered that the console allowed him access to the to the camera feeds around the facility. He flipped between scenes of Aperture employees at their desks or in the labs, until he landed on one that showed him what he wanted to see.

It was Chell; she was lying in a stasis pod. Doug studied her face. She looked serene, calm.

A tear slipped down his cheek. It splashed on the floor just as GLaDOS's voice pierced the air around him again.

"I see you found the real video feed of her. That other one I showed you was an outright fabrication."

So Chell was okay. Doug flipped through all of the cameras until she reappeared on the screen. Where were the other girls?

"Remember when I told everyone their daughters would be well cared for? That was a lie, too."

Doug was still. He thought about Henry, holding out hope for Anna.

His fist slammed into the red button. The screen went black. This time, GLaDOS's voice came thundering through the ducts.

"I guess I wasn't clear when I said I would respond at the first sign of defiance. Do you know what else isn't clear? Neurotoxin. It's actually kind of a greenish colour. If you can't picture it, wait a minute or two and it will be taking the place of the air in your room."

When she spoke again, her voice was low and close, meant only for Doug. Her words crawled over him like spiders, and he rubbed violently at his arms to shake her off.

"That was a dumb thing you did just now. Did you think I was kidding? They didn't put an amusement core in me, you know."

The screen flickered back on, and a camera feed of a computer lab appeared. Many of the machines were on the floor; tables had been overturned in the chaos. From somewhere out of sight, a green gas was pouring from the ceiling and descending into the room, denser than air. A figure stood solidly against the wall, strikingly calm amid the madness, surveying the room.

Henry.

Doug watched Henry put this head in his hands. This was his life's work, falling apart in front of him. As the neurotoxin reached him, he crumpled to the floor, convulsing, his mouth contorted in a scream of pain that the camera couldn't relay.

"No," Doug said. He mashed buttons on the keyboard, anything to remove the image from the screen.

"No!"

Henry fought for a long time, but his body finally went still. Doug wept.

"That one was surprisingly resilient."

Doug looked up. The screen swam in front of him. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and began searching for another way to shut her off. There had to be something else built into the system, something she couldn't override. Henry was smart enough to have thought of something like that.

Henry was dead.

_Focus_, Doug told himself as he opened files and programs on the computer. At least the air conditioning system seemed to have some kind of mechanism that prevented backflow of the gas into the vents. That would give him time to come up with a plan.

"Oh, you think the vents are safe?"

A high-pitched hissing noise began behind him. This time, he swore her voice was being funnelled directly into his ear.

"See you in Android Hell."


	6. Ch 6: The Adventures of Princess Chell

**Chapter 6: **

"The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance."

-GLaDOS

* * *

Chell woke up feeling refreshed and invigorated. She opened her eyes to see the glass panel sliding away above her. When it had fully retracted into the pod, she sat up. She was in a small, square room with glass walls. Outside was a larger room with walls of grey tile. The faint sound of music reached her ears. Determined to find out where it was coming from, she swung her legs over the side of the pod and stepped onto the floor.

Wait, stepped? Shouldn't it have been fallen?

She looked down at her legs. Something mechanical was wrapped around her calf, and from it emerged a long black piece of metal that curved to touch the floor. She remembered how high up the pod had been, how she'd had to throw herself into it. Now, it stood just above waist height. Perplexed, she became aware again of the music, and followed the sound to a low table on the far side of the room.

The music was coming from a radio. She knelt and investigated it and the other objects on the table. There was a cup (empty), a clipboard with a paper depicting various warning signs and emblazoned with the Aperture logo (so she was still there), and a book. She picked this last one up and examined it more carefully. On the cover were the words _Young Lady's Illustrated Primer_ in embossed golden letters. Chell smiled. At least she still had her book. It would help her figure out what was going on. She opened it to the first page.

An illustration of a young woman took up the entire page. She was facing Chell, but looking to her left, around a corner. On her face was a mix of determination and fear. She was holding a strange black and white device that seemed to envelop her arm. Around the corner, a white capsule with legs shone a red beam from a fixture on its front. The light from the beam almost seemed to reach out of the page.

Chell turned the page. Her mind has been frustratingly cloudy since she first woke up, but she found she could still read the words.

* * *

Once upon a time there was a Princess named Chell who was imprisoned deep in the dungeon of a tall dark castle in the middle of a great forest, with her friend the Companion Cube. Princess Nell and the Companion Cube could not leave the Dark Castle, because the great doors were held shut with nineteen locks. The keys to the locks were hidden throughout the castle dungeon's many rooms, each containing a puzzle for Chell to solve.

Chell was smart and resourceful, but the evil Queen Gladys tried to stop her at every turn. Queen Gladys did not want Chell to leave the Castle, because then the Queen would be alone. She forced Chell to part with her dear friend the Companion Cube, so that Chell's love would not be taken up by anyone else. The Evil Queen tried to distract Princess Chell from her mission of finding the keys by offering her cake, but Chell, who had learned from the Companion Cube not to trust anyone, knew that the Queen was lying. After finding the nineteen keys, Princess Chell unlocked the great doors to the Dark Castle. But when they opened, she found that what was on the other side was not freedom, but the evil Queen Gladys herself.

Princess Chell had to fight and destroy the Evil Queen. Finally, she emerged from the crumbled ruins of the Dark Castle and set out into the forest, victorious and free.


End file.
